Insights

Compliance and Integrated Health

The main focus of integrated healthcare is to deliver seamless and coordinated care for patients and practitioners alike. Digital advancements have enabled this, allowing healthcare providers to utilise technology to integrate solutions that allow for better patient care, and that ensure that they can share information easily with relevant parties across multiple devices and platforms. The benefit of this is that patients and their providers have a real-time view of their situation, and are able to pursue tailored solutions proactively. This leads to a higher quality of care, improved health outcomes, and smoother transitions across healthcare systems.

However, while digital environments have evolved to deliver better care – they have also changed how risk is approached. Patient files contain sensitive information, and if unsecured, can be breached catastrophically. All healthcare providers need to ensure that they have appropriate security measures in place and that their operating systems are continually improving to keep up with innovation in technology – and to stay ahead of risk. In fact, companies who don’t could face fines of over $2m under new Notifiable Data Breach laws, not to mention the consequences associated with the GDPR.

The issue here is that healthcare providers handle hundreds of thousands of personal records every year, including patient information, security, and financial documents relating to clients, doctors, families, and more. It is absolutely integral that providers meet industry compliance standards if they are to keep this information secure – and avoid the consequences associated with not being compliant and not reporting data breaches. The best way to do this is to establish a good Business Continuity Plan that not only helps an organisation prepare for a security or natural disaster event, but that enables them to recover as quickly as possible and act according to the governance and compliance legislation that relates to their operation.

Other measures providers can take include conducting Vulnerability and Penetration Testing, which will help them understand where loopholes exist in their security system and provide a means to address them in an effective and ongoing manner. Good cyber security and compliance is holistic and multi-faceted, designed to meet the needs of each organisation and the changing face of their digital environment. As technology evolves, so does security, and so does compliance. Healthcare providers utilising Integrated Health can also improve their compliance integration by:

Technology is becoming integral to the patient care experience. It can enhance how healthcare providers operate and is being moulded by the innovation and advancements we are seeing across digital technologies. At MOQdigital, we help our customers get the most out of their digital investments and empower their services with relevant solutions that can be leveraged now and well into the future. Contact us to find out more.